A Spainful Start

Stop 1 - Madrid

We arrived. Our bags didn’t. We watched Madrileño after Madrileño pick up bags full of tacky souvenirs from their vacations abroad, but we left empty-handed. We luckily changed our minds the night before the flight about totally “winging it”, so we had a forwarding address for the airline to deliver our bags. Plus earned a little bonus cash for the items we were missing that day, like a new pair of jeans. Happy birthday, David.

For an 11:30am arrival in Madrid, we certainly got a slow start. We spent an hour waiting for and then processing the paperwork for our delayed luggage, and then the Metro machines refused to accept any of the three credit cards we’d prepped with our banks for the trip. But, a quick and tired three hours later, we were at San Bernardo, in a lovely plaza by our hotel. Hace calor en Madrid. There were some great cafeterias in the plaza with lots of terraza diners, but we were so hot we opted for inside – and as it turns out eating indoors instead of on the terrace saves you 15% on food throughout the pricey city. We had our first Spanish beer, a café con leche, a torilla española, a bocadillo with jamon Serrano, and a long siesta immediately afterwards.

The days following were filled with yummy tapas, 11pm dinners, late night churros, an unexpected Mediterranean belly dance, seeing Robin’s old coworker and Spanish host family from study abroad, and miles of wandering through the city looking at the beautiful buildings.

Best Eats:

San Jines – Churros & Chocolate

El Abrazo de Vergara* – Risotto with clams and octopus carpaccio

Juana La Loca – Tortilla Española

Best Times:

Taking a nap in the shade at Retiro Park

Walking down el Paseo de la Castellana, Calle Mayor, and around Puerta del Sol

David hearing Robin use her Spanish for the first time